Tim Duncan will not be playing tonight against the Denver Nuggets, and is out indefinitely with a sprained ankle. His absence didn't look like a huge problem during the San Antonio Spurs 111-96 win over the Golden State Warriors, in which Duncan suffered the injury after four minutes, but that was just the Warriors. They're a terrible rebounding team, as evidenced by the fact that Thiago Splitter grabbed 14 rebounds in that game. Obviously, the Nuggets are a different story.
Spurs Vs. Nuggets: No Tim Duncan, No Problem?
The Nuggets have adapted to the loss of Carmelo Anthony well, going 10-4 since he moved to New York, but only one of those 10 wins came over an elite team, when they defeated the Boston Celtics in the second game after Anthony's departure. The Spurs should present a serious challenge, but it's definitely debatable whether or not they constitute "elite" in Duncan's absence.
SB Nation’s San Antonio Spurs Blog, Pounding The Rock, isn’t terribly optimistic.
I do not have a good feeling about this game. Denver is big, physical, hungry and finally playing as a team. Sure they still have head cases like K-Mart and Smith, but Nene, Gallinari and Lawson lead this new look Nuggets team and they are looking good.
Meanwhile, our Denver Nuggets blog Denver Stiffs would have almost preferred to face Duncan tonight.
While the Nuggets need every win they can get and (in theory) a Duncan-less Spurs team makes the Nuggets an overwhelming home favorite, I'm disappointed in this turn of events. For starters, this new-look Nuggets team needs as many playoff-caliber tests as possible and playing pushovers like the Raptors, Wizards and Kings can lead to a false sense of security. With the exception of a home date against the Thunder on April 5th, the Nuggets have no remaining home tests left now.
With Duncan out, the Nuggets certainly have a good chance of defeating the Spurs in a home game at the Pepsi Center (10:30 pm ET, ESPN), despite being winless against them so far this season. But, is that necessarily a good thing? The Nuggets could eventually face problems stemming from the fact that they never got tested by a healthy Spurs team in the post-Melo era. If they lose anyway, their problems obviously run much deeper.
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